


Clearing of a Sky

by fyreyantic



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Asexual Character, Asexuality, F/M, Tumblr: imagine-loki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-24
Updated: 2017-03-24
Packaged: 2018-10-10 00:34:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10425300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fyreyantic/pseuds/fyreyantic
Summary: Celia and Loki have been together for nearly a year and things are going as well as can be expected. However certain things are starting not to tally up - especially in the bedroom - and Celia has no idea why.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was done for an imagine at Imagine-Loki.tumblr.com
> 
> I'm hoping people, especially asexual people, get something out of this. I'm grey ace myself so it's...yeah. Leave a comment if I did anything near a good portrayal. I mean, leave kudos too. Or do what you want. It's your life. Live it.

Celia and Loki had met nearly a year ago. In a bizarre twist of fate they’d both been at one of Stark’s galas – him, an attendee and her, a violinist in the string quartet. It was a big deal to be playing at such an event. It was exciting but also nerve-wrecking. Her arm guided the bow with ease, a clear bright tone ringing through the cavernous ballroom and blending with the other instruments in a seemingly effortless stream of music. It was going well until Celia’s eyes met a tall, dark-haired man’s from several metres away. He startled her with the intensity of his gaze and she floundered magnificently; her arm tensed, she pushed with too much vigour, and to her horror the bow strings snapped. Celia froze as the rest of the quartet continued, the other violinist shooting a sympathetic glance her way. She sat still, slowly lowering the violin and holding the frayed bow like a pitiful sceptre.

She lost the eyes of the man but found more attention being drawn to her with people muttering to each other as they looked her way. Celia reddened in shame and after a few minutes’ deliberation did the unprofessional thing and ran away, leaving her instrument behind her.

She found an empty room and covered her face a moment. Taking deep breaths Celia slowly removed her hands and found the man from earlier, who she later learnt was Loki, smiling at her. He congratulated her on both her playing and the embarrassing disaster. Celia decided he was weird. Loki decided to come to see all her concerts.  
He was handsome, sometimes amusing, and Celia found it hard not to be attracted to him. It took a while for her to realise he was flirting with her and she dared to think that, in the very least, she could end up sleeping with him. But it turned out he was interested in more than that.

Loki invited Celia to art galleries (which she secretly found boring), to see plays (Shakespeare was good but everything else depressing), and occasionally to small out-of-the-way cafes with confusing menus (she had pretended to know what she was ordering until he noticed the way her face scrunched up while drinking something called ‘kombucha’). They were definitely dates and Loki for the most part was a complete gentlemen. Sometimes he was impatient and sometimes he seemed to enjoy things going wrong more than he should - and things seemed to go wrong a lot when he was near.

It was going really well until Celia was kidnapped by the Norse god Thor and given the shovel talk. It was only then that Celia realised who Loki actually was. That culminated into Celia and Loki’s first argument. He admitted that he probably should have told her and at her indignation that he ‘had destroyed half of Manhattan and tried to take over the world’ he countered with ‘I have affections for a mortal, how do you think that sits with me?’

They made up after a week with the dual assistance of Thor’s interventionary tactics and Celia’s own realisation of just how much she cared and missed Loki. Loki sincerely apologised for his shortcomings and she only pretended not to believe him for five minutes.

The one thing that had always bothered Celia was that he had never invited her over to his place. She knew now it was because he had taken up residence in Stark Tower, but even after Celia found out who he was Loki seemed slightly loath to have her over. After a week, just when Celia was rearing up to confront him, he invited her over for dinner. With dinner meant staying over. With staying over meant – well, sharing a bed.

Loki was a caring, considerate bed partner; more focussed on her than anything else. Thanks to what Celia figured was hundreds of years of experience Loki was also much more skilled than anyone she’d ever been with. He had her coming harder than she’d ever come before and it would have been perfect except that something didn’t quite fit.  
It was just a feeling at first. Celia figured she was just being needlessly insecure; it was hard not to be when sleeping with a god. But as time went on small things started to tally up. 

Sometimes she’d look at him during sex and his eyes were blank and disinterested. It only lasted a second, or when Loki thought she wasn’t looking. He was also the first man Celia had ever been with who showed hesitancy when being offered a blowjob. As well as this, every now and then it would take a while for him to get hard, and Loki always seemed to have a forthcoming reason. But after hearing his excuses several times Celia began to suspect there was something more to it.

It hurt. She didn’t know why Loki acted like this. She thought that maybe it was her fault and mortal women just couldn’t match up to the gods. Loki was probably protecting her feelings by not saying anything but that just hurt more. She wanted to know what he was thinking and feeling even if broke her heart. It just felt sad otherwise.

But she didn’t actually know. She didn’t know if that was the real reason. She didn’t know why Loki looked at her with such adoration when they were together yet felt him tense whenever she started kissing him deeply, or whenever she began slipping her hands to feel beneath his clothes. Loki acted like everything was normal and Celia tried to do the same – but it ate at her inside.

 

It was a morning after and Celia was in the kitchen making batter for pancakes. The confusion, the rawness of the pain in her heart hadn’t faded from last night. But Celia didn’t want to talk about it. Not now. They were going to have pancakes, Loki was going to make some snarky comment, she’d laugh, and everything was going to be fine and ordinary.

Except it wouldn’t.

Loki came out of the bedroom, smoothing back his hair. He walked into the kitchen area to join her.

“Pancakes?” he mumbled sleepily. “Is there some sort of special occasion? A Midgardian tradition I am not privy to?”

He came closer to Celia and kissed her on the cheek before embracing her from behind.

“No, I just thought…We had a good night last night.”

Celia felt the vibrations in Loki’s chest as he hummed in half-hearted agreement.

“Don’t you think so?” Celia asked, pulling herself out of his grasp to see his face.

“Well, we had dinner, we saw a play, and we spent the night together. Is that worthy of pancakes?”

Maybe it had just been boiling under so long, or maybe it was just the way Loki made it sound normal, like there was nothing wrong, but Celia found herself doing precisely what she had intended not to.

“Why don’t you like having sex with me?” She asked suddenly, turning completely around to confront him.

Loki looked incredibly surprised.

“What do you mean? Of course I enjoy it. Are you doubting my affection towards you?” 

His voice turned soft and he drew his thumb across her cheek, before cradling her jaw.

“No, Loki. There is something. I’ve been trying to just ignore it, but there’s something, Loki.”

He chuckled but it sounded hollow.

“Where is this coming from, my love?”

He was smiling down at her, gentle but concerned. Celia took Loki’s wrist and pulled his hand away.

“Am I not good enough?” she asked, trying to keep her voice from shaking. “Have I done something wrong?”

“Now, why would you not be good enough for me?”

“Because! Sometimes you just look at me like you’re not there. Like…like you don’t enjoy it. You think I don’t notice, and…Please, Loki. What am I doing wrong? Don’t just…do that thing you do.”

“What thing?”

“That thing! When you don’t want to answer something so you just respond with a question!”

Loki paused, his face schooled into a neutral expression.

“Loki?”

He closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath.

“There is nothing wrong with you.”

“Then what?” 

He didn’t respond immediately.

“You are right,” Loki slowly admitted. “I don’t enjoy it. But it’s not just you. It’s everyone.”

“You don’t like sex?” Celia asked, eyebrows raised.

“I try to but I can’t. And I thought it would be fine with you but I still can’t,” he said, looking pained.

Celia paused, taking it in. It was confusing, and sudden and the relief that it had nothing to do with her was short-lived.

“But you have sex with me. If you don’t enjoy it…why?”

Loki looked at her in disbelief before laughing once more.

“Why? Because that is what lovers do. Because it is not your fault I am like this.”

“I don’t understand,” Celia said with a frown.

“It feels so empty,” Loki said with a half-hearted gesture of his arm. “All of it. It means so much to you, and I don’t feel anything. I care and nothing changes. It makes you happy and I cannot share it.”

He paused, looking at Celia in desperation.

“Celia, I am broken and there is nothing to fix me.”

“Loki, this is…This is really sudden. But you still love me? That hasn’t changed, right?”

He sighed.

“You are avoiding saying it.”

“Saying what?”

“That you do not want this anymore.”

Celia looked surprised.

“Of course I do! You mean more to me than just that.”

“I know how much you enjoy it when we lay together. Could you really do without it?”

Celia paused.

“See? It’s as simple as that.”

“No. No, Loki –“

Celia tried to stop him, reaching out to grasp his arm but he had vanished into thin air. She swore emphatically and slammed her fist against the kitchen counter, instantly regretting it as the pain spiked through her. She took a few deep breaths to try and find her bearings.

It was so much to process all at once. Loki didn’t enjoy sex – how did that even work? Celia couldn’t get her head around it. He could get aroused, and he could reach orgasm, but he still didn’t enjoy it? But she couldn’t doubt him. Loki had been so pained over it, so vulnerable. It hurt just remembering the look on his face. Loki really thought he was broken and Celia had no idea if he actually was or not.

What Celia was certain about was that this didn’t make her love him any less – and people made sacrifices in relationships all the time, right? If that was Loki’s thing then she could deal with it. Probably. Celia was doubting herself. She’d never been in a relationship without sex but it didn’t seem as impossible as Loki obviously thought.

It stayed in her mind throughout the day even as she tried to distract herself. Once Loki had calmed down he would return and they could talk over it properly. But the worried thoughts wouldn’t stay away even while watching her favourite TV shows or playing her violin. Celia’s head hurt from thinking. She kept going over the conversation they’d had in the kitchen, and going over all the times they slept together trying to find something that could help. Celia felt awful. It had taken her so long to even notice Loki wasn’t interested. She felt like she had been pressing him into having sex with her. It broke her heart and made her sick to her stomach.

She just wanted him to come back.

Celia’s sleep that night was restless. After hours of tossing and turning she picked up her Stark Pad with the intention of surfing the internet mindlessly. She checked twitter, facebook, and anything else she could think of before an idea came to her: maybe google could help her understand Loki.

There was more than Celia was prepared for. Websites, forums, social media – there were thousands of people talking about and sharing their experiences. People who didn’t enjoy sex, people who were disgusted by it, people who only enjoyed it under certain conditions – it was all there. Asexual - that was the word they used.

Celia was so excited to find something that could help not just her, but Loki. If he thought he was broken she could prove he wasn’t. It was a thing. It was an orientation. It wasn’t impossible to understand, after all there were people Celia wasn’t sexually attracted to. That was just how Loki felt towards everyone.

It filled Celia with a kind of nervous energy and the next morning she anxiously awaited Loki’s return.

He didn’t show. Neither did he appear in the afternoon – nor the evening, nor the night.

It was the next afternoon that he finally appeared. Celia ran to him, wanting to hug him, but he stood so still with such a grave expression that she stopped in her tracks.

“Celia, I have come back to–“

“You’re asexual!” Celia burst out quickly, unable to stop herself.

“What?” Loki replied, caught off guard.

“Wait. Wait, I’ll show you. I was looking through the internet and I – here!”

Celia picked up the Stark pad and opened one of the websites she’d bookmarked.

“Look!”

She handed it to him, and with a frown Loki took it from her. His eyes scanned the text quickly.

“This is…”

His expression softened.

“See? You’re fine. There’s nothing to worry about.”

Celia expected him to keep reading but instead he slowly put the tablet down on a nearby table.

“This doesn’t change things.”

Celia blinked.

“What do you mean?”

“I share this with a few mortals – how does this change me? I am still the same.”

“And there’s nothing wrong with that. Look, I’ve had a lot of time to think about this and it’s not that big a deal.”

Loki raised an eyebrow.

“No, look – what does sex really matter? You’re still Loki. You’re still everything I love. And I can, uh, orgasm without you. I did fine before. So it’s fine.”

Loki shook his head.

“No. You’ll resent me for it. Celia –“

“Do you remember when we first met?” Celia interjected.

“Of course,” Loki said, a little baffled at the change in subject but smiling in spite of himself. “What a beautiful disaster you were.”

“And how you’d come to all my shows, and it was kind of weird but you weren’t creepy about it?”

Loki frowned.

“’Creepy’?”

“And that time you took me to that exhibition of medieval tarot cards or something?”

“Playing cards.”

“And you made one of the pictures on them look like you and I totally believed you when you said you knew the guy who painted it and that he based it on you.”

“You make it too easy, my love. Besides, I could tell you were bored.”

“They were playing cards – and you couldn’t even play with them. You took me to look at playing cards. Why did you think that would make a good date?”

Loki just smiled, a tender and loving look in his eye. He was surprised when Celia took his hand.

“Those mean so much to me – those memories. I’m not giving them up. I’m not giving up all the memories we haven’t even lived yet. I really, really mean it. It doesn’t matter at all.” 

Tears fell from Celia’s eyes and she tried to wipe them away.

“I love you, you idiot. And you’ve made me cry.”

Loki reached out for Celia and held her to his chest, hand resting at the back of her head.

“This is going to work out,” Loki heard her say, muffled slightly against him. “I’m going to buy a vibrator and this is going to be fine.”

Loki couldn’t help but laugh. Celia felt the vibrations through his chest and smiled. After a few moments they drew a little apart, his arms still around her as she looked up at him.

“Hey, uh, I read something…Is kissing okay? And cuddling? I want to know that I’m doing this right.”

With a slight tilt of his head, Loki pondered over it.

“Cuddling,” he echoed, looking uncomfortable with the word, “is fine. Kissing…”

“Short ones? Like –“

Celia stood up on her tiptoes and lightly pressed her lips against his.

“Like that?” she asked curiously.

“Maybe slightly…”

Loki cradled one side of her face with his hand, lips melding in motion for a short second. He pulled away slowly and the gentleness in Loki’s eyes made her heart swell.

“That. Nothing more.”

“I am fine with that. Very, very fine.”

He looked away.

“But not all the time. Just…”

“Whenever you’re okay with it. Okay.”

Celia noticed Loki still looking a little uncertain.

“Hey, we’ll see how it goes. I’m here for you, you precious little asexual.”

Loki frowned, giving Celia a disbelieving look. She laughed.

“So, do you think this deserves pancakes?”

“I suppose so,” Loki conceded light-heartedly.

Celia smiled.

“I love you, Loki.”

“I love you too.”


End file.
